It is so hard to let go.

Lately I’ve started the first moment of every day coconsciously taking an emotional inventory by checking the intensity of the empty feeling located just under my heart.

I recognize the sensation as I have experienced it before immediately after the deaths of my little sister, my mother and a close personal friend. It is an emotion and a feeling that I will experience again and more often as I am getting older and it is the way life progresses. The emotion is grief.

It has been so extremely hard these past two weeks dealing with the sense of loss in the aftermath of our daughter moving out and burning her bridges so well essentially committing what I have come to call Famicide. (Suicide from family.)

What is so difficult is dealing with the loss on the level of a death because the circumstance of her departure only allows us to deal with it in that way. And so…

I look at the clear blue sky and instinctively think of the joy she would show… but she is gone.

I watch a baby animal or smell a flower and think how she would … but she is gone.

I take an unconscious inventory of home and family and things to share… but she is gone.

I think of the hugs and the promises, the feelings of father… but she is gone.

I find myself hopelessly attempting to mentally twist events of the future so she can come home… but she is gone.

I unconsciously sense through the moments of the day the void within entity of family. My family is there… but she is gone.

After five years of life, five years of family, five years of love… she is gone.

She is gone and so I must accept that each waking morning I will have to assess that hollow feeling in my heart. I also know though that time will pass and time will heal and day by day things will adjust so love will be remembered but not the loss.

A question answered.

Someone I knew asked me to explain,
Just exactly what I thought of her deciphered through a name,
An inquest more of motive as she was blinded by her pain,
A question she need not ask as the answer had never changed.

This name had become a symbol of all that was sweet and true,
Of a loving tender devotion encompassing not just me but you,
A simple name meaning Joy and Happiness a future to pursue,
In the beauty of heaven's mantle I found the name ... Misty Blue.

M iracle that beat the odds.
I nspiring story of strength and hope.
S imple desire for joy and happiness.
T rusting despite so much betrayal.
Y earning for normalcy and happiness.
B utterfly beauty within and without.
L oving nature and a need to be loved.
U ndaunted spirt.
E nchanting memories created in the moment of her presence.

I am not alone...

I realized the other day just what type of woman I am married to and that I could not have asked for better.

Our union was attacked from within but she chose not to falter, stood with me and then let her anger toward our attacker subside out of love for that person.

My wife is not weak, would never ignore facts or enter into denial and has never been a Polly Anna. I apologized to her for my part in bringing her pain and asked how it was that she did not hate.

Her answer was simple and in it’s simplicity I realized true love and devotion.
She said; “I wasn’t angry until I realized that she almost made me doubt you.”

Thank you my darling wife for believing in me.

I lost a friend today.

I lost a friend today… This friend was my mental health counselor. I say a friend not just because of our relationship of counselor and counseled but because of a close interpersonal relationship that was developed over the years in that we shared details of personal insights and aspirations generally not restricted to the confines of the professional relationship. She was the person whom I had advocated that each of my children seek out during their own personal trials because I had come to trust and believe in her counsel and instincts. She had visited our home, knew our dreams and in our hearts had become family.

I lost a friend today because she had to choose and some how to not believe but couldn't?

We now have family members at odds and this counselor and friend chose to abandon and desert my family when she was truly needed. She sighted restrictions of ethics and the professional detachment as her justification but none of it was actually the truth.

I resent her passing as I believed in her so much. I believed that no matter the depth of problem or confusion she would always be there with her balanced counsel but I was mistaken. I resent her now apparent prejudice and naïveté in her adherence of an outrageous accusation without a more in depth analyzation of circumstance referencing past facts and personal knowledge and applying it more equitably to this problem.

I was offended by the apparent knee jerk reactions that this friend who knew me best when I realized that she was no longer responding with the insight of someone who knew and understood me but was now reacting to that personality type so typical of the persona I had been accused of being.

I was disgusted by her lack of personal fortitude of moral justice. I feel she was convinced that a member of my family was in terrible emotional pain and that my family too was in peril yet she walked away… Her oath, her obligation, her profession dictated that she see us and herself through this turmoil but she abandoned us.

I will miss my friend and remember what we had shared. Through the good and bad she did see me through some really horrible times and I will always remember her personal kindness and gentle soul.

Good bye my friend and God Bless

Attempting to focus perspective.

These are the last explanations and suggestions of a man to his daughter after... attempted Famicide.

Now that my period of grief is almost over and my mind will allow me to think more clearly I now have the need for redress and to hell with what you may or may not do with the information. You have insulated yourself so well from anyone that might know too much of the truth to allow you to lie so well to yourself and others and veil it under the guise of protecting yourself from further abuse. (Victim mode)

I am not going to even begin to defend myself with pleas of retrospect devotion and love as that would only aid you in you delusional crap. I will how ever give you retort to some of the points in your letter you so adamantly made sure you delivered to me at work.

First off reference your plea that I be your dad in all things and your being upset at my COLD response; Under the circumstances that you made the plea in comparison to how I had treated Candy in the past with her dysfunctional relationships you asked that I be dad to you in the same way.

My answer to you was not meant to be COLD and aloof absent of feeling, it was meant to be resolute and reassuring in its tone of off handed normalness so as to reassure you that if that was what you wanted then I would do exactly as you wished. Our past relationship was openly known to be extremely close and without boundaries when sharing the intimate details of thoughts and past experiences. We had shared so many of your intimate thoughts and experiences for so long and all within the confines of getting you on your feet and out the door to a good life and you were now asking me relate to you as I would a real daughter... and I felt blessed.

The very foundation that you have used to burn your bridge and change your entire life’s direction was based on a mistake. I wasn’t cold; I detached or stepped back to what you had defined as a healthy distance that you now wanted.

Secondly you accuse me of acting like a jealous boyfriend in my reaction to your blossoming relationship with SJH.

No I was not acting like a jealous anything… I was acting like a loving father who cared for what may or may not happen to his daughter.

Where was the jealous father who watched your first steps back into the social scene with Brad? Did I protest, yell or make demands? No! Patty and I were allowed to mentor your toddling attempts at kindling a romantic relationship and even though it basically ended with you asking for me to come pick you up, you were not hurt in its negative end. You weren’t restricted or controlled with Brad and if he had been THE guy and the relationship had progressed in a positive and healthy way for you Brad would now be treated as family.

Where was the jealous father with Chuck? Patty and I again watched you venture forth with romantic aspirations even though we had voiced the small concern that he was an internet acquaintance. We met him, talked with him and recognized that you were totally infatuated with him. Did I throw a fit? Did I attempt to intervene? Did I act like a jealous boyfriend? NO! Patty and I both expected that the same ground rules of open discussion and questioning would take place as it had with Brad. Did it? NO!

When we, not I, WE came to both you and Chuck and warned you not to become too intimate too quickly WE explained our concerns that it would change your relationship before it even got started and that we felt that you deserved being courted. We gave this advice in support of your desire of a relationship not in an attempt to control anything. It is called mentoring.

When you suffered your first panic attack at work after a two year of not having one and confessed that it was brought on by your own dishonesty to us re your intimate relationship with Chuck. Did I throw a fit? When you graphically described the emotional trauma caused by the revisiting of past horrors due to physical abuse during your love making did I react as a jealous boyfriend? NO! I listened and attempted to comfort.

I reacted as your dad. Patty and I both accepted the transgression as a normal part of finding your own way and pointed out the pit falls of deviating from our mentoring. We told you that we loved you and that things would progressively get better as you learned more and more.

With SJH you forget who had the initial negative take on your involvement with him. It was Patty not me. She had flat out told you that it was unwise to date anyone from work as it was a standard and universally accepted that only problems would follow if it didn’t work out. You came to me and asked if it was okay to “just go out for coffee” with SJH after work and I begrudgingly said that I didn’t see anything wrong with a social get together over coffee.

Let me make a point here. You weren’t really asking for permission and I wasn’t in the position to dictate your actions. I was giving you advice and you were attempting to obtain acceptance.

In the same vein after Patty and I discussed your desire to “have coffee” with this guy, saw the red flags of a pending rebound from Chuck and the benchmark advice re dating a guy from work, we decided to advise you that we would not approve of you becoming too involved in another relationship so quickly. Jealous boyfriend or concerned parent?

The next step took us to Sandy’s. We attempted to reach you re your head long rush into a relationship with a divorcee seven years your senior with two children, a criminal record and a questionable ethic of even wanting to meet your family. We were also acting from the counsel of your two sisters who suspected drug involvement after watching your new prospect leave a bar party to go outside into the winter cold three to four times during the evening for five to ten minutes without any plausible excuse. We didn’t jump to conclusions we consulted with your sisters. We didn’t ban you from seeing him at the party and didn’t ridicule you or his behavior other than the disrespect he was showing you that prompted Candy bringing it to his attention.

I wasn’t acting about anything! I saw someone I truly loved spiraling down the abyss of an obsessive and misdirected need to get what they considered more important than anything else and that was a self determined relationship with SJH. I WAS BEING YOUR FATHER!

I am truly sorry Misty for what has happened but I guess the bridge has been burned and nothing can change that. You have in essence committed Hari-kari with your family of the last four years by your own hand, word and deed and so we move on. As with any death the one left behind collects up those things that remind you so vividly of the one you have lost and put them away out of site so the healing out of grief can begin. We have done exactly that with everything related to you except one picture that shows three young women so happy in life and the celebration of their parents love for each other.

You cannot decide to visit hurt upon yourself without collaterally hurting those around you. You in turn cannot dictate the reaction of those you have chosen to dismiss with eloquent pros of martyrdom. People who care for you have an opinion and it is too simplistic to portray their heartfelt thoughts as the parroting of your so called tormentor. They have their view and have the right to voice it without threat.

We are done, I am done. We shared what we had over the last four years and have no regrets in those memories. You have on your own decided your path with the regretful impetus of degrading all that was good and nurturing in your stay with us. So be it. If you want to revisit the horrors of the past and reanimate them into the present it is your choice. You post “M” as a very subtlety devious way of playing a very twisted game. I don’t approve. It is not healthy. I wrote it… I remember… It is still valid and true.

I’ll end this FINAL note with none of the hate, anger or ridicule I’m sure you have projected would come by leaving you with the only thing we all can still honestly say, WE LOVE YOU.

DAD